PASSING NOTES, (From Saturdays Daily Times.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 5

PASSING NOTES, (From Saturdays Daily Times.)

One Dreadnought, and two if required, — that was our epoch-making promise to the Empire, if I don't mistake. And it was one Dreadnought and two if required that had audience of the King last week, and lunched with the Prince of Wales. Sir Joseph Ward was present, but as a mere symbol, strictly. It was to the essential facts that the Royal homage was paid ; and the essential facts were, as I have said, one Dreadnought and two if required. Tnere is, of course, the possibility that" Sir Joseph took the King into his confidence, a thing he has not yet done with us. Which New Zealand Imperialist it was that first began to think in Dreadnoughts we may guess, but we have never been told. His carcass is due to* the Socialists for stoning, and equally to the Jingoes for moulding in bronze ; so modesty has kept him silent, — modesty combined with prudence. With the King, however, Sir Joseph would have no hesitations. " 'Please, Sir. it was me!" — I hear him saying. " And how do you get the money?" says the King. " Borrow it, Sir, chiefly. Then there's retrenchment; — I've pretty well disembowelled the Civil Service already. Then, too, — does -your Majesty know of the Lawrence - Roxburgh railway-?" " Can't say I do," says the King. " Most important line, in process of construction ; — connects a rich inland fruitgi'owing district with the coast populations and distant markets; — well, Sir, -I've stopped that absolutely. . Empire first, your Majesty, and all else go hang !"' " Oh, certainly," says the King, getting up to go ; " I'm afraid you'd hardly bring my Ministers to that way of thinking. If I can do anything for yourself personally, Sir Joseph * " Thanks, awfully, " your Majesty, but not just now ; — it wouldn't do, you know. Perhaps by and by." " Then a cigar ? Sorry I'm wanted in the next room. There's whisky on the sideboard." . . . This is the kind of thing wanted to make our Press Association cables really interesting. Let them hurry up with the penny-a-word tariff.

To the English newspapers Sir Joseph Ward — Premier of Socialist New Zealand, summoned to England for Defence purposes — is naturally an interesting figure. They don't quite make him out, and they are glad of any gossip about him. His predecessor, Seddon by name, called forth armies at a stamp of his foot, and sent a dozen mounted regiments to South Africa. This man smites with his trident, and lo a similar miracle in navies — an Empire Dreadnought, and two if required. Wonderful country, New Zealand !

Sir Joseph Ward, who is now on his -^ way to England, is an amazing example of the rapid promotion that awaits men of energy and merit in the Dominion of New Zealand. At 21 he became a Municipal Councillor, at 25 a Mayor, at 30 an M.P. Since then 'he has been Colonial Treasurer, Minister of Railways, and Postmaster-general, and he succeeded " Dick " Seddon as Prime Minister almost as a matter of course. All this, and he is still in the early fifties. The mere chronology of this may be all right; but the inference that normally in New Zealand promotion at the same rate and of the same kind awaits men of energy and merit is all wrong. It takes more than energy and merit to make a New Zealand Premier. There goes to the making a tertium quid, a je ne sais quoi of political aptitude that I prefer to leave undefined. Men of energy and merit, — why, I know scores. I know one, anyhow, and he is not so much as a Town Councillor.

The following paragraph from the same London newspaper may be read as early myth; — it is of the nebulous aureole that naturally gathers round the head of your secular saint.

Sea-fishing is Sir Joseph's favourite pastime, and he nearly lost his life while far out in tho Stra'(.=. A shark known locally as " Black Jack," made for the boat, and as he had "been known to attack fishing parties, Sir Joseph and his companions made for the shore. It was a touch-and-go struggle, for while the other men pulled for all they were worth, Sir Joseph fed their pursuer with the cod they had caught, and thus kept

him at a distance until the danger zone had been passed. Myth, I said ; on consideration, I prefer to say parable or prophecy. There is no locally known shark, "Black Jack" by name, inhabiting the Straits and inimical to fishing parties. The story might be rationa'ised by supposing a confused reference to " Pelorns Jack," who is not black but white, and is not a shark but a whale. There is, however, no motive to rationalise it ; the story is very well as it stands, if you take is mystically. The shark " Black Jack," that threatens to devour the Fisherman Ward and his crew, is insolvency. This central fact once grasped, the rest is easy. To amuse and delay the insatiate monster, Sir Josephflings overboard whatever comes to his hand, — the Lawrence-Roxburgh railway, the heads of the Civil Service, one by one ; also clerks,' inspectors, and other small fry, without mercy. The chances are that presently even the " co-operators" wil ! have to go, — an army 10,000 strong, doing " Government stroke "-Avhichr is an uncertain quantity — in exchange for Government pay hitherto fixed "aird certain.' More than one Minister of late has been betrayed into ominous murmurs against co-operative labour arid the bjxraen of it. We,_have but to wait,, and we shall see what we shall see. And there 5s nothing wrong with the shark story' if we take it allegorically. '- '■> ■ ■> *---

Domestic Economics, as now to be estab- . lished at the Otago University, is an unseemly blend of the - serious and the frivolous, in the proportion, shall we say, of four to six. ■ Six to four was the voting for and against, and' the frivolous element was certainly on the majority side. Afc a previous meeting of the council the duties of the Lady Professor were said to be " the teaching of household economics and food preparation," — which is to say obscmely that she will teaoh housekeeping I and cooking.

A Member: I Raw something about plumbing. Who teaches plumbing?

Another Member: The Department of Public Health.

Professor Scott: And what about decoration of the home? Who teaches that?

The* Vice-chancellor (facetiously): Oh, Professor Scott, I suppose! — (Laughter.) The point of the joke being that Professor Scott, an opponent of the proposed chair, is an amateur artist and the president of an Art Society. It is in this gay and irresponsible spirit that the council, by a vote of six to four, has made cooking and housekeeping university subjects at the cost of "£7OO a year. But the principal fun has ijret to begin. Cooking and . housekeeping must be taught practically or not at all. Practice is every thing, theory nothing. There is no department of cooking on which I .myself am not an .accom"plished theorist. 1 have a theory of making porridge, of boiling eggs, of , frying bacon, of. infuedng tea. Stocks, and soups, and sauces, puddings and pies, custards and jellies, I understand them all, theoretically. But I have never practised, and shouldn't know how to begm; indeed, the chances are that I shouldn't be allowed. A theory of" cooking is about as useful as a bh-3ory of playing the flute. It follows that university cooking and housekeeping will mean a furnished dwelling-house, no detail wanting, and domestic life carried on therein at full tilt from day to day. The student's proficiency will be tested by examinatvw, — necessarily an examination in the doing of the things, not in describing them. And the only set-off to the fun of this academical funning is that it will cost £700 a year.

A University .that desires fo become a Freak Museum need be stopped Jsy nothing but want of money. The field Ms unlimited. There may be a chair of Room Decoration, .Social Amenities, Afternoon Teas, and the' Art of Conversation; — a necessary adjunct, this; to the chair .of Domestic Economics. Also a chair of Paedagogy, — delightful word, with a fatal attraction for the half -educated. A chair of Psedagogy would occupy itself with the production of pedagogues, a most desirable social asset. Next, a chair of Journalism, to teach the. report jr»g .of a . erQwnej.-'s 'quest, they writing of a leader, the composing of a Passing Note, the correcting of a proof, and the inventing of new and happy printer's errdrs, — an obvious want. To these add a chair for the artificial rearing of rickety infants (based on the Karitane Home) ; a chair for teaching young mothers how to suckle their babies ; and a chair for teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. More professors are wanted — many more. A batch of eight was made, aiio ictu, the other day ; but the eight should have been 18. The Presbyterian Church is doing its best in this behoof ; there aie three Presbyterian professors already, and ought soon to be six. L°t the Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, follow suit. The only ' drawback to an unlimited development of this nature is the fact, generally recognised in church circles, that a professor is not always a possessor^

To Mr " Civis." Dear Sir, — After having noticed how cleverly you referred to the questions Mr Wragge put before you about lunar matters, and even further off planets than that, I would like if you could help me to solve a more at home problem (concerning gravity) which troubles my small mmd — viz. : If gravity is something attracting all the earth or everything said to have weight towards the middle of the earth (just as a magnet will attract a piece of steel), then in what way does the said attraction maintain to keep spinning a revolving balance wheel, or a locomotive to keep travelling (after tho steam has been shut off), etc., when it does not, try so doing, bring them any nearer its centre? Trusting you will find room for an explanation to this matter. — I am, yours etc., Eybe Creek. The ingenuous simplicity of this inquirer disarms criticism, and I answer him in all seriousness. It is not gravity that kejps the wheel spinning and the locomotive running after the power is cut off. Both would go on' moving for ever if

gravity and friction did not pull them up. But why they move at all; what gravity is, and what motion is, Sir Isaac- Newton in his " Laws of Motion " did not explain. Nor to this day is there any learned man or body of men that can explain these things; — not even, I venture to affirm, the multitudinous professoriate of the Otago University.

The Daily Times, being a serious-minded journal, has usually no place for verbal quips and cranks except at the tail-end of. Passing Notes. Frivolous contributors, therefore, usually try 'to dump their frivolities into this column ; and I, in turn, usually dump them into the waste-paper, basket. But it is a sort of 6illy season just now; — look at the stage army- ot young .doctors running amuck in the correspondence columns, across the" front, round the back, across the front again, and. so on, da capo. I; accept the following triviality as. quite in keeping. Dear "Crvis." — At a society dinner, an American woman sitting near the Bishop of London said to 'him 1 " Bishop, I wish, you would set my mind at rest as to ■the.- similarity or . dissimilarity between your< country and ours-^ on one pom*. Does- fh» butterfly because- the tomato can'?" - - • ■ I $!h(& Bishop' laughed heartily "at this vivacious Bally. Not .so a yovrng' ■Englishman of bis .]Pb°» afteav dimxer'. sought his I " I want to know, you know," said he, : " about that joke of Miss B.'s. She asked i it the butter flew because the tomatoes could. Do tell me what the point is." J Why was the elephant late in getting Ito the Ark? Because he had to carry his trunk. Repeat this with the variation — " Because he had to carry his portmanteau." You have then, in essence, the same old story, with the same old point. And — which is a great* advantage — you have it much shorter. Civis.

At last week's meeting of the Otago Land Board a letter was received from Me Charles Ray, secretary of delegates, forwarding recommendations in regard to the subdivision of the Morven Hills and Kawairau Runs. 'The plans of the runs, as approved! by the delegates, were, after some small l alterations in the boundaries suggested by, the surveyors had been made, approved by the board. One area of about 1000 acres and two areas of from 250 to 500 acres «u;e to. be reserved for subdivision into email 1 holdings. The runs will then be offered 1 as originally decided by the board.

■ Our Wellington correspondent informs us that private advice has been received from Auckland to tb^e effect that nhe troupe of Maori dancers" who left recently to fulfil an . engagement at the New York Hippo--dronro have for some reason or other not been allowed to land in the United States. It, ia said that they may return to J?ew Zealand.

Advice was received in Dunedin on th« 10th that the Hud-son Cup, pr%senrt»d to the Garrison Artillery of the Dominion for oompatition, was not on board the Maori, ita shipment having been delayed at the last moment. The cup 'is being shipped by the Paparoa.

A Roxburgh correspondent says that thero is a good deal of talk there of requisitioning motor waggons for conveying the fruit to Edievale during the ensuing fmit season. One lias already been ordered. Thousands of fruit '.trees have come into the district within the last fortnight, and tree-plan* ing is in full swing. The weather is somewhac cold, but fine, and orohardiste are bu*y pruning'

Negotiations with Router's Agency were carried out last year by Sir Thomas Bent's Ministry with the object; of securing the publication in leading English newspapers of fuller information regarding public ami. more particularly, official affairs in Victoria. The intention of the Ministry was to ensure the publication in England of. reliable reports of such events as the delivery oi the Treasurer's annual Budget speech, and tli© announcement of any important decisions- of the State Government of interest to English people. It was hoped that this would be a good means of advertising Victoria, and providing reliable information of the State's progress. These negotiations •wero continued by the present Ministry, and the Premier (Mr Murray) now announce* that an arrangement has been; mad© between the Government and Reuter's. This, he says, will provide for the, cabling of information to England, and' its publication in lea-ding English newspapers. The Government will pay for the transmission of these messages. The annual cost, the Premier cays, will not exceed £300.

Some time ago (writes the Chertsey correspondent of the Ashburton Guardian) Cadet Smith placed a note in a sack of oats that was being shipped to England., It was addressed "To Whom it may Concern," and the finder was asked to give bis opinion of New Zealand's offer of a' Dreadnought, and to say whether ho thought it would be accepted by the British Government. To this note a reply has now been received as follows—" As to the Dreadnought, the offers are now under tho consideration of the British Government -which will, I think, accept both New ZeaI land and Australia' 3 offer While writing I will, if I may, suggest that if there are anywhere in the colonies go-ahead gentle* men who can write articles likely to helj> to push a nation ahead, instead of keeping, it at the point of 50 years ago, tell them' to send them to be read in the House of Commons. Then, perhaps, ' we shall not' n«ed to^depeod on our .colonies, who ar« more on the alert tharf Old England. W« have been sleeping, and we need rousing.'—* (Signed) H. J. Evans, Bristol."*

A number of butchers in Grkborne are aggrieved because the local Borough Council haa paesed a by-law requiring that all abattoir fees must be paid a month in ndsranoe. They suggest that they should be allowed a week's credit. The council has tagne@d to consider at its next meeting a motion, that the by-lftw should be amended to provide for the payment of only one tweok'e fees in advance.

The foundations of a new office building for the Union. Steam Ship Company ere being put in at Lyttekon. For many years the company has occupied an old building in Norwich quay, but in deciding upon obtaining' new offices at the port the company chose a new site right on the water front. The building will be one of a eize more in proportion with requirements than the old one, -which was too roomys